It happened a week ago, and now that the emotions quieted, I feel ready to write about it. At first I was just a casual observer, watching a simul and taking pictures: The guy has good; the old man wearing the Brooklyn cap was losing after only...
Ah, the joy of winning the human way, even though the engines disapprove! Here is the ending of a game I played today. As you can probably tell from the pawn structure and the position of the knights, it arose from the Ruy Lopez.
*** This book review may contain spoilers *** Just finished reading Brady's "Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness." A number of facts mentioned by the author changed the image...
For a chess addict, what literature is there to read on the beach, on a transatlantic flight, by the pool, or any other setting where no chessboard is required? Looking through my library, I find the following books which can be broadly categorize...
People sometimes get on my nerves. Wrong, not "sometimes." Often. What is the best way to cope, get away from it all? Chess, of course. I play against software most often, and noone bothers me then. No chat, no rude remarks, no letting the time ru...
My favorites: American IPA (India Pale Ale) family, German Weissbier, just about any Belgian beer. From the more standard supermarket fare, Miller Lite is OK, so is Australian Foster's. Carlsberg is acceptable, but it is "probably not the best b...
I put my book down and began to set up the pieces on the board. An elderly African-American man was crossing the park towards me, a manila envelope in his hand. Looked like Danny Glover, I thought. I slowly adjusted the pieces on their squares. It...
It seems that not a day passes, without a chess.com member complaining about an opponent who was either rude, or very likely used software to win a game unfairly. Wouldn't it be useful to have some indication, before a chess game, whether the pros...
I just love the original Star Trek series. It's incredible how entertaining those episodes are, even after 20+ years of first watching them. The show did seem to run out of steam a bit in the third season, but still "The Specter of the Gun" remain...
In September 1859, an enormous solar storm caused worldwide telegraph systems failures, and distorted the Earth's magnetosphere. This "Carrington Event" remains the largest solar storm ever recorded. One may only speculate what the consequences wo...
There is a stack of old family photographs that my mother gave me a few years ago. Some of them date to the early 20th century, some are even earlier. I must admit I know very little about the people in these pictures. One is especially vexing: ...
It must be a sign of my obsession with chess. Megalithic structures, such as the one in Carnac, France, pictured below, are usually believed to be either burial sites, or structures used to determine equinoxes and solstices. But what do I see? ...
